SACD certainly bests CD for me.

Your right about how much better SACD is than CD. Too bad greed killed the SACD.

1. Artists representative insisted on triple royalties for each hybrid disc -- one for the CD layer, one for the 2-channel SACD layer, and one for the multi-channel CD layer.

2. Record companies, in their endless and misguided attempt to prevent copying, wouldn't permit SACD with digital transfer, so it could only be played through analog cables, necessitating 6 cables for multichannel.

3. Sony jacked up the price on SACD, instead of offering all records as hybrids, complicated by the 3-royalty problem, and, further, by putting some discs out as hybrids and others separately as SACD-only or CD-only.

As for players, your probably good with the Sony. I have been using a Sony DVP-S9000ES for over 5 years and it does sound good. I think I'm switching to a Marantz
DV8300, as it plays multi-channel, CDR, and DVD-A, which the 9000ES does not. The 9000ES was a rare value when it came out. Built like a tank, you can now find it for less than $400, used, on audiogon. If it needs repair, Sony has a flat fee of $133 for factory repair, regardless of the problem.

DVD-A was a bigger failure, probably due to the format war with SACD and the dumb idea that you needed to have a video interface to access a menu in order to make the selection to play the disc.

TOO BAD! SACD is much better than CD, especially newer discs that were recorded with DSD (Direct Stream Digital).

(Footnote: Still, it's not vinyl!)

SACD beats CD for me, too. I am fortunate that most of my music is available on SACD. It helps to like classical and a tiny smattering of jazz. It also helps that MOST SACD releases are simply mastered better - even the CD layer on SACD's sound better than the originals. Some companies are going back to the master tapes and re-encoding them into DSD. The difference between the original CD (released in the 1980's) and the 2007 remaster is usually pretty obvious.

All the best from sunny Australia, Keith.

Esoteric DV-50's can be had for a reasonable amount - and they are fantastic players.... quite close to my old Linn Unidisk 1.1.

A few years back was at my then local stereo store, since moved and bought out, and heard a Diana Krall Cd on their set up, then using the same set up, heard the same album in SACD, there was no going back to just plain CD thereafter.
Its a few years old but since vinyl is my main focus, it works for me, the Marantz SA-14, way outshines the 8260, which gets a lot of play.
Did a test between the two, my son owned the 8260. Put it in my system for 3 days to warm up, hooked into aux, put on the same CD, no contest, the SA-14, won hands down, he was quite disapointed.
Wasn't produced for long, don't know why, but works for me and should be around $1000 or so used.